United States battleships
The first
United States battleships (though they were not called such at the time) were the heavy-armored
cruisers USS Maine (ACR-1) and
USS Texas. The first ship of the
United States Navy actually classified as a
battleship and given a "BB"
hull classification symbol was
USS Indiana (BB-1). In total, the
United States has commissioned 57 "BB" battleships. They may be grouped as the pre-
Dreadnoughts, BB-25 and earlier; the dreadnoughts, BB-26 through BB-54; and the fast battleships, BB-55 and later.
Indiana class:
USS Iowa (BB-4) was unique.
Kearsarge class:
Illinois class:
Maine class:
Virginia class:
Connecticut class (note out-of-sequence numbering):
Mississippi class:
South Carolina class:
Delaware class:
Florida class:
Wyoming class:
New York class:
Nevada class:
Pennsylvania class:
New Mexico class:
Tennessee class (two of the "Big Five"):
Colorado class (the other three of the "Big Five"):
Senator
Benjamin Tillman instructed the Navy to design "maximum battleships." While those plans never progressed beyond the study phase, they did influence later designs.
South Dakota class (keels laid down for the but the entire class was cancelled before they were launched):
North Carolina class
South Dakota class (commissioned):
Iowa class:
The
Montana class was authorized and then cancelled before any of the keels were laid down. They were to have been:
Except for
Kearsarge, named by an act of Congress, all American battleships have been named for states, and every state has had at least one battleship named for it except
Alaska and
Hawaii (recall that these did not become states until
1959). Two battleships have been authorized to be named for
Montana, but both were cancelled before commissioning. The pre-dreadnoughts
USS Zrinyi (formerly
SMS Zrinyi),
USS
Radetzky (formerly
SMS
Radetzky), and
USS Ostfriesland (formerly
SMS
Ostfriesland),
taken as prizes of war after
World War I, were commissioned in the US Navy, but were not assigned hull classification symbols.
No American battleship has ever been lost at sea, though some have been sunk in port and others sunk as targets.
Related Topics
- Aircraft Carriers
- Cruisers
- Destroyers
- Submarines